1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to a system and method for stylus enabled data entry. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and method for configuring time related information for an electronic device using a stylus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Computer systems, including desktop personal computers and personal digital assistants (PDA's), typically have an interface that allows a user to enter time related information, such as the time of day and a time zone. As part of the time setting configuration process, users are typically asked to enter a time zone, a home city, and a time setting. Computer systems may use time settings to control system operations such as backups, to timestamp file updates, and to timestamp emails.
Computer systems are adding capabilities to increase its “user friendliness”. One user-friendly capability that is common on PDA's is a touch sensitive screen. The PDA user uses a stylus to select and manipulate information on the touch sensitive screen. Desktop computer monitors are also starting to have touch-sensitive screen capabilities. By using a touch-sensitive screen with a graphical user interface (GUI), it is easier for a user to enter time related information on a computer system. The GUI may represent time related information in a digital format or an analog format. One digital format approach is where the computer system displays a digital clock with up and down arrow keys to increase or decrease the hour and minute settings. Although effective, this approach is cumbersome to the user because many movements are required. The user must first select an “hour” field with the stylus. Then, the user selects up or down arrow keys with the pointing device until the “hour” field displays the correct hour setting. After the hour setting is correct, the user selects a “minute” field with the stylus and selects up or down arrow keys until the “minute” field displays the correct setting. After the hour and minute setting are correct, the user may need to select an “AM/PM” field to toggle the AM/PM setting.
Many users are more comfortable with configuring time settings using an analog interface. Meaning, the interface displays a clock face, hour hand, and minute hand. Users may prefer this because many clocks, including wall clocks and wrist watches, are analog. Existing analog interfaces, however, still require the user to perform many actions. For example, a user may be required to perform many style strokes in order to configure the time of day. In addition to setting the time of day in a computer system, users are typically asked to enter a time zone and a home city. However, a challenge found with existing art is that the user may be required to access several user interfaces in order to enter each piece of time related information. For example, the time zone setting may be located in a first graphical interface, the home city setting may be in a second graphical interface, and the time of day setting may be in a third graphical interface.
What is needed, therefore, is simple way to enter time related information using a graphical interface with a minimal amount of user actions.